News & Information

Italian researchers have discovered a Martian lake! Well - probably. You see, way back in 2003 the European Space Agency launched the Mars Express and it’s been orbiting the red planet ever since. It’s not the first Martian orbital mission, nor will it be the last. But Express certainly hit the jackpot recently when it scanned what appears to be a 12 mile radius underground lake in the southern polar region of Mars. From the researcher’s abstract report: “The presence of liquid water at the base of the Martian polar caps has long been suspected but not observed. We surveyed the Planum Australe region using the MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) instrument, a low-frequency radar on the Mars Express spacecraft. Radar profiles collected between May 2012 and December 2015 contain evidence of liquid water trapped below the ice of the South Polar Layered Deposits. Anomalously bright subsurface reflections are evident within a well-defined, 20-kilometer-wide zone centered at 193°E, 81°S, which is surrounded by much less reflective areas. Quantitative analysis of the radar signals shows that this bright feature has high relative dielectric permittivity (>15), matching that of water-bearing materials. We interpret this feature as a stable body of liquid water on Mars.” Water on Mars. Check. Well, I guess I mean - it is very probable that there is water on Mars. Looks to me like my dream of being a Martian colonist is one step closer. Of course, massive terraforming would need to happen for…

For centuries man has tried to translate the “Ruffs”, “Yowls” and “Gruffs” of man’s best friend to no avail. But researchers at the University of Salford have been able to define 19 of the 47 dog gestures studied in footage by their owners. “I wanted to better understand dogs and what they wanted from us … dogs are doing something similar to great apes, but they’re doing it across species. ” says study leader Hannah Worsley, a graduate student at the University of Salford in Manchester, England. Dogs are using referential signals, which is a type of gesture conveying a message without using words. The study concluded that the following 19 referential dog signals mean: Head under – “Get me my toy” Roll over -- "Tickle my tummy" Head forward – “Scratch me” Hind leg stand – “Play with me” Head turn – “Get me that” Shuffle – “Scratch me” Back leg up – “Scratch me” Paw hover – “Get me my toy” Crawl under – “Get me my toy” Flick toy – “I’m hungry” Jump – “I’m hungry” Paw reach – “Give me that” Nose – “Scratch me” Lick – “Scratch me” Front paws on – “Open it” Paw rest – “Get me my toy” Head rub – “Get me my toy” Chomp – “Play with me” Paw – “Get me my toy” As you can see, Fido may be redundant, and possibly dangle his participle. But many of us dog owners agree that these gestures hit the mark…

Anthony Bourdain, the famous world traveler, chef and Parts Unknown host was found dead in his room at Le Chambard, a luxury hotel in eastern France. The cause of death was hanging and local prosecutor, Christian de Rocquigny du Fayel said there was, “no reason to suspect foul play.” Another tragic loss to suicide. I did not know Mr. Bourdain personally, but like most folks, I knew all about his world travels from his really fantastic CNN show - Parts Unknown. I certainly don’t know what haunted Mr. Bourdain enough to take his own life so I won’t speculate. He leaves behind him a daughter, family, friends and legions of fans. It’s odd to think, “But he seemed like he was so happy - on TV!” Right? We like to think that we know people because we see them on TV, or in films, or through social media. We don’t. His death, it seems has shocked Mr. Bourdain’s friends and colleagues. Usually, there are warning signs of depression and / or other things before an apparent suicide attempt. It really sounds, from what I’ve read, that no one had any idea he was suffering from whatever it was that drove him to take his own life. Mr. Bourdain’s long time girlfriend, the actress, activist Asia Argento released a quick statement saying he was, “my love, my rock, my protector … I am beyond devastated.” Condolences seem to be coming in from all over the world which shows the vast reach…

Charley Jones Overnight comes to GCN. Broadcasting Thursday - Sunday from 11:00 pm - 2:00 am (central) time. Charley Jones, a native Texan, has enjoyed a 40 year radio career entirely within in the Dallas/Fort Worth radio market. Conversant with and passionate about the American Revolution, world history and global affairs, Jones majored in History at the University of Texas Arlington before landing his first radio job at one of America’s premier rock stations, KZEW-FM, The Zoo, in Dallas, Texas. In 1980 he met Janel, the station's new music director, who soon became his wife. For almost four decades they’ve loved worked together in radio, traveling the world, and becoming the proud parents of two outstanding children. Following the Zoo, the couple was chosen to become original air staff at a newly created jazz / new age station - KOAI-FM, The Oasis in Dallas. Charley signed on as the news director, Janel became the music director and both hosted top-rated shows. In 1992 Jones got the “tap on the shoulder” he’d always anticipated: he was selected to join the Texas State Network where he would host Texas Overnight for the next 25 years. Jones was honored to be inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame and the Texas Panhandle Hall of Fame. He was a political commentator for CBS television and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and was the winner of the Vivian Castleberry Award presented by the Association for Women Journalists. Charley treasures time with his wife, their…

After several weeks of fake news about iPhone X sales, Apple revealed the truth. It was the company’s best-selling smartphone every single week it was on sale over two quarters. This is the first time Apple’s most expensive model achieved that level of sales. This comes after all the fear-mongering that people wouldn’t pay for a mobile handset costing $999 and more, depending on the configuration. There were surveys demonstrating that a majority of potential customers would reject the costlier models, which is understandable. But with iPhones starting at $349, it only demonstrated that different people have different priorities and different budgets. But the iPhone X still led the pack among iPhones. I’m sure this is clear to you. Now I suppose some of you might be skeptical of Apple’s claims about revenue, profits, and the number of items shipped. But the company is following SEC requirements. Filing false reports could get them in a heap of trouble. Look up companies who have run afoul of that agency. In short, it’s fair to say that Apple is reporting the truth, whereas some members of the media who have repeated the fictions about poor sales are clearly mistaken, or perhaps deliberately lying. Some of the fake news about poor iPhone X sales allegedly originates from the supply chain. But Apple CEO Tim Cook has said on several occasions that you can’t take one or a few supply chain metrics and assume anything about sales. Apple will routinely adjust supply allocations among…

Some feel that Apple should be doing more, producing a greater variety of products. After all, a company of its size ought to be able to deliver a far wider catalog of tech gear. To some it may be seriously underperforming based on its huge potential. Take the expected decision, as announced last week, to discontinue AirPort routers. After all, Apple was a pioneer in that business, so why should it abandon it? One key reason may be that there is no longer a place for Apple’s entry into this market. If sales were good and profits were high, AirPort would surely have had further updates after the last one, in 2013. It was no doubt strictly a business decision. Compare that to the Apple LaserWriter, one of the original products that heralded the desktop publishing revolution. Equipped with Adobe PostScript, a LaserWriter was a mainstay for businesses, an expensive mainstay. By 1997, when the LaserWriter was killed by Steve Jobs, it was hardly a unique product. There were plenty of equivalent printers available, all compatible with Macs, and Apple needed to ditch underperforming gear. So the LaserWriter joined the Newton and other products in being discontinued. In any case, on last week’s episode of The Tech Night Owl LIVE, we presented outspoken commentator Jeff Gamet, Managing Editor for The Mac Observer, who briefly talked about the Slenderman urban legend, which was featured on our other radio show, The Paracast, before jumping full tilt into technology. There was a detailed…

In late Sept. 2017, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un called the United States President a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard" in response to insults hurled by Donald Trump during his first speech to the United Nations. Trump called the North Korean dictator a “madman” on a “suicide mission” and that the U.S. would “totally destroy” North Korea if it or its allies were attacked. Mighty Trump Says “Might” be Open to Talk The dick measuring continued, with Trump basically saying “mine’s bigger than yours” in a tweet on Jan. 2. He was referring to the size and power of his nuclear launch button after Kim bragged that the United States was within range of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and he had a nuclear launch button on his desk. Eight days later, the White House released a statement announcing the Trump Administration might be open to holding talks with North Korea. It was an obvious attempt to reign in the war rhetoric so everyone could enjoy the Winter Olympics in Seoul, South Korea without worrying about a nuclear attack, but it was more than welcome given the threats of nuclear war made by both bullies with no regard for anyone else on this playground called Earth. Trump’s official White House statement was hardly responsible for Kim and Trump planning to meet within a month. The statement put much of the worried world at ease despite Trump committing to nothing at all. Considering U.S./North Korea relations consisted of name calling and…

Had you been living under a rock the last month you’d still somehow know the 2018 NFL Draft’s first round was deep with quarterbacks. The fact five quarterbacks were taken in Thursday’s first round shouldn’t have surprised anyone, but, as always, there were surprises throughout the draft’s first round, starting with the very first pick. The Best: The Cleveland Browns got their franchise quarterback, probably Many “experts,” including ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr., predicted Cleveland would take quarterback Sam Darnold, but Baker Mayfield is the next potential savior of the Browns franchise. I don’t know if Mayfield is a franchise quarterback. I’m no expert, but even the experts can’t predict who will go where and how good they will be in the NFL. ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. had Hall of Fame running back LaDainian Tomlinson as the 25th best player on his big board in 2001 and promised in 2010 to retire if Jimmy Clausen wasn’t a successful NFL quarterback. The Cleveland Browns struggling to draft the right quarterback since Vinny Testaverde went 16-15 over the 1994 and 1995 seasons shouldn’t be such a surprise. All teams miss more than they hit when it comes to drafting players at any position let alone the most important position. The Browns missed on quarterback Tim Couch with the first overall pick in 1999, but they did worse in the following draft, selecting pass rusher Courtney Brown with the first overall pick. He finished his career with 19 sacks. The Browns managed to miss…

“The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.” -George Soros First of all, I would have you note that the headline does not suggest that because we, as a people, are armed that God is going to put an end to judging this nation (Psalm 9:16). In fact, just the opposite is true. Yet, it is a mercy of God that we are still in a position to right the wrongs by remaining armed. America’s sin is before God (Numbers 32:23), and until America repents and turns from her wicked ways, the judgments of God are not only going to continue, they are going to increase (Leviticus 26:14-39). With that said, the propagandists were hard at work this last week, as well as every week attempting to brainwash the American people with more anti-gun and false polling rhetoric. Instead of magnifying the law (teaching men the fear of The Lord; Proverbs 16:6) against the crime, you have the media and politicians magnifying the crime and blaming the law abider for the crimes of the transgressors. One headline in Minneapolis was “Majority of Americans want tighter gun legislation.” Really? A majority of Americans want tighter gun legislation? I do not care if 100% of the American people want to disarm themselves before their enemies, America is a Constitutional Republic (Article 4, Section 4), not a democracy. We are ruled by Law, not the opinion of any media-contrived polling of the majority of people in this…

Former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested Tuesday evening in Sacramento after DNA matched him to evidence found at multiple crime scenes from the 70’s and 80’s. Authorities have now positively identified DeAngelo as the infamous East Area Rapist, aka, the original Night Stalker (as opposed to Richard Ramirez, who is generally now referred to as “the Night Stalker). Between the mid 70’s and into the 80’s a string of rapes, assaults and murders happened up and down the Bay Area, mostly near the Sacramento area but stretching as far south as Irvine. Then, sometime around the mid 80’s - they stopped but not before (at least) twelve people were murdered and more than 50 women had been raped. But because they suddenly stopped in 1986, the case of the Golden State Killer has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. Writer Michelle McNamara, late wife of comedian Patton Oswalt, wrote “I’ll Be Gone In the Dark” (a phrase the killer said to one of his victims), a well received book about the East Area Rapist, dubbing him the “Golden State Killer.” Apparently, McNamara had a minor obsession about the case and spent years researching and writing the book. She died of cancer before completing the manuscript. Her husband, with the help of a few investigators, finished the book last year and published. Police, for some insecure reason, quickly point out that Michelle McNamara’s true crime novel had nothing to do with their arrest. Oswalt had a few things…

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Sad to say that the truth has become a diminishing commodity in America today. Particularly when it comes to many branches of government. Remember the old adage that “I’m from the federal government and I’m here to help you?” Too often, they are here to examine, investigate and even prosecute you. A prime example of bungling, mismanagement and corruption are the antics, prominently in the news right now, of the FBI leadership. A criminal referral has been made against the former number two in command Andrew McCabe. The inspector general, according to The Washington Post,determined that McCabe lied to investigators four times, three of them while under oath. This column wrote last week about former FBI head James Comey and his efforts to portray himself as being ethical and above the fray of partisan politics. Now we learn that Comey is also being investigated for leaking classified documents, and denying that he had done so. He blew off the matter by saying: “Good people lie. I think I’m a good person, where I have lied,” Comey said. So much for his above board ethics. Comey obviously adopts the longstanding FBI adage that they can lie to you but you can’t lie to them. Yale law professor Stephen Carter puts it this way. “Lying is terribly corrosive and ought to be discouraged, but where law enforcement is concerned, I’ve been telling my students for decades that true respect for justice requires a symmetry. If I’m not allowed to lie to you,…

The most recent World Health Organization rankings of the world’s health systems has the United States at 37th -- seven spots behind its neighbor to the north, Canada, and 19 spots behind its American predecessor, the United Kingdom. That might not seem so bad on a list 190 nations long, but the United States ranks last in health care system performance among the 11 richest countries included in a study conducted by The Commonwealth Fund. In that study, “the U.S. ranks last in Access, Equity, and Health Care Outcomes, and next to last in Administrative Efficiency, as reported by patients and providers.” Much of our inflated health insurance premiums in America comes from paying to create your bill. That’s right -- 25 percent of total U.S. hospital costs are administrative costs. The United States had the highest administrative costs of the eight countries studied by The Commonwealth Fund. Scotland and Canada had the lowest, and reducing U.S. per capita spending for hospital administration to Scottish or Canadian levels would have saved more than $150 billion in 2011. Treating healthcare like any other marketplace requires careful, complicated codification of products sold and services rendered. People must be paid to determine how much your healthcare costs, and that can’t be changed, but it can be improved upon. Allowing insurance companies to profit from people’s health makes for a marketplace in which every cent of cost is counted and every penny of profit is protected. Profit motive always results in more scrutiny by…

Has Facebook gotten out of control? After listening to Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testify before a committee of the U.S. Congress last week, I didn’t pity him at all. He deserved it, and, in fact, probably was treated too kindly. His presentation seemed decent in comparison to those dire warnings about the boy wonder and his inability to conduct himself in a mature fashion in public. He allegedly was thoroughly schooled on the proper behavior before political vultures, supposedly. I mean he did all right, I guess. But far too often he’d respond to a complicated question with a stock answer, that he’d have his team get back in touch with the questioner. I just wonder if that has happened already or ever will happen. The fact checkers also found some contradictions in what he said about when and how Facebook first became aware of the existence of Cambridge Analytica, which reportedly harvested user information without their knowledge. In any case, on this week’s episode of The Tech Night Owl LIVE, we presented security expert Chris Weber, co-founder of Casaba Security, a Seattle-based ethical hacking firm that advises major tech, financial, retail and healthcare companies. They also work with companies to develop secure apps and software. He is the co–author of the book, “Privacy Defended: Protecting Yourself Online.” During this session, Chris discussed the growing brouhaha over Facebook privacy, and the kind of information they’ve collected about their users. Its unexpected involvement with the 2016 Presidential campaign was also…

Another study suggests artificial sweeteners can increase one’s susceptibility to getting diabetes. Research led by Dr. Brian Hoffman from the Medical College of Wisconsin and Marquette University, looked at rats who were fed artificial sweeteners and found they had changes in their fat and energy metabolism such that fat levels increased and protein was instead broken down to provide much-needed fuel. Diabetes occurs when people cannot break down and utilize sugar correctly (more discussed below). This isn’t the first time artificial sweeteners have been linked to a glucose metabolism disorder. In October 2016, researchers at Karolinska Institute found two diet drinks a day DOUBLES one’s risk of diabetes. These studies are concerning as many people prone to high blood sugar opt for the “sugar-free” beverages, thinking they are protecting their health, when in fact they could be hurting it. Why would artificial sweeteners have such an effect? One theory is our mouths and hence minds think something very sugary is coming down the pike. Artificial sweeteners can be anywhere from 150-500 times sweeter than actual sugar. So the pancreas and other organs may ready the body for this huge anticipated “sugar load.” When no sugar actually comes down the gullet and into the intestine to be absorbed, the body may eventually take a “boy who cried wolf” stance and not mount appropriate responses later. Diet soda has been associated with weight gain, maybe due to the body’s metabolism slowing down as a result it feels it is “starving” when real…